Inside Health

National Briefing | West: California: Study Urges Hospital Changes

Published: January 5, 2005

Specialists hired by Los Angeles County to study a problem-plagued hospital have come up with nearly 1,000 recommended changes, including fixing a ''largely dysfunctional'' personnel department. The consultants released a preliminary report on Monday, which found the hospital, Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, to be riven by problems, including unreliable record-keeping and personnel who are poorly trained, inattentive and sometimes even missing. King/Drew is the only public hospital in South Los Angeles, a neighborhood plagued by gang violence.